word and flip.it/thelead. that's it for "the lead." i'm jake tapper. i turn you over to mr. wolf blitzer in "the situation room." mr. blitzer? >> thank you, jake. rerouted. we're learning new details of how malaysian flight 370 was put on a new course the night it vanished. massive search. crews are searching an area the size of the continental u.s. looking for any sign of the missing plane. we'll talk live to a u.s. navy commander who is right in the middle of it helping lead the effort. cell phone silence. not a single call from anyone on the plane. why weren't passengers able to communicate with the world as the plane flew on for hours and hours? >> i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room."

we're following multiple new developments in the search for flight 370. among the latest, confirmation that the plane's route was reprogrammed by someone inside the cockpit the night it vanished. also, officials have completed the search of the pilots and co-pilot's personal come computers and e-mails and thailand has revealed that it was tracking flight 370 as it changed course, flew into the night and simply disappeared. cnn is dedicating its global resources to this story and our correspondents and analysts are working all angles. let's begin with jim sciutto. what are you learning? >> the reprogramming of the flight as well as data from thailand are two pieces of evidence that corroborate the leading theory and that is that this turn to the west of malaysian air flight 370 off the course from beijing was both deliberate and under control, like the actions of a pilot or a

co-pilot or someone with the knowledge of the pilot, how to fly that 777. burning questions remain who exactly and why. the night flight 370 vanished. someone inside the cockpit, a u.s. official tells cnn, programmed the jet's computer to leave its planned route to beijing and head west. the new details corroborates the leading theory of u.s. investigators that the plane's sudden change in course was a deliberate act by the pilots or someone else on board with extensive knowledge of flying. today, investigators revealed, however, searches of the flight computer and e-mails as well as the flight simulator that the pilot kept at his home as shown nothing suspicious. >> as far as i'm concerned, the aircraft to fly to beijing, once you're in the aircraft, anything is possible. >> reporter: the air force radar

tracked it the night it disappeared. at 12:2 a.m. the flight vanished and then six minutes later the radar picked up the plane again flying along the same path that malaysia tracked it. the search area has expanded to a staggering 3 million square miles, about the size of the entire continental united states. >> this is an enormous search area and it's something that malaysia cannot possibly search on its own. i am very pleased that so many countries have came forward to offer assistance. >> reporter: the search for suspects also widening to include crew, passengers, and any airport staff who had access to the plane. china said background checks on 150 chinese nationals on board found no ties to terrorism. u.s. officials tell me that as they receive names from malaysian investigators of other people on that plane or who had access to the plane, they would

be run against a u.s. terror watch list and we know that they have run names through that already, including the two iranians who were traveling on stolen passports. none of that has turned up a link to terrorism. >> nothing suspicious other than the fact that they had stolen passports? >> exactly. not yet. you can be confident that many other names that came from that plane have been run by terror watch lists already and again the indication that they haven't turned anything up yet. >> stand by. we're getting breaking news coming into "the situation room" from the pentagon right now. barbara starr getting some exclusive new details about a phone call between the defense secretary chuck hagel and his malaysian counterpart. what are you learning? >> the call now possibly the highest level direct contacts between washington and the highest levels of the malaysian government. chuck hagel calling the minister last night saying he's also the

acting transportation minister. the two men talked about the search and the idea of the call was that hagel was offering u.s. support. the u.s. airplanes continuing to search the south indian ocean. but, here is what is so interesting. the subject of transparency by the malaysian government came up. apparently the conversation took a turn and secretary hagel took the opportunity to raise the point that the malaysian government would need to consider transparency, telling the world what they know as soon as they know it. that being described to me by two u.s. officials who are familiar with the call. they are making the point that hagel was not critical. the phone call was friendly but transparency, telling the world what you know when you know it is needed. this may be a very complex operation but the malaysians have come out of criticism for

perhaps not being as forthcoming as they should be. >> barbara, thank you for that. our law enforcement analyst tom fuentes, former ntsb managing director peter goelz is here with us and also joining us a former 747 pamela, thanks for joining us. jim sciutto is here as well. what do you make of this phone call, tom, because there has been frustration in what some see as the lack of transparency or cooperation or forthright, whatever you want to call it, from the malaysians and the other countries, including the u.s. is concerned. >> it's true, wolf. the malaysians did not put out as much information as they could have under the philosophy that they didn't want to put out anything that was wrong. they were being conservative, want to wait until corroboration is there to see if it's a true fact that we're going to put out. received heavy criticism from

the global media and from their own people and the victims' families at the two airports in beijing and cue all la kuala lumpur. so they've gone to each extreme. if they don't put it out, they are not forthcoming and if they put it out, they are inaccurate. that's a struggle they've faced since the beginning. >> this new information that they preprogrammed the flight path once the flight took off presumably from inside the cockpit, what does that say? >> well, it locks in the theory that whatever happened took place inside the cockpit with either the pilot and co-pilot or someone else inside the command center. and there was simply no other explanation. >> because this -- >> at this point. >> they have to start punching a bunch of buttons, 7, 8, 9 buttons in order to do that.

it's not as easy as it sounds. >> these are weigh stations. you plug them in, the plane turns to the appropriate heading and flies to the way station. and if you put in the wrong way station, which happens sometimes, the plane will go back and get the way station. so it's pretty simple but you've got to do it and you've got to do it right. >> pamela, you're an experienced pilot. tell us about the time that you would change the automatic flight path inside the cockpit once you're flying. what would generate that. why would you do that? >> well, it would be very similar to gps in a car, for instance. before you leave, you program your destination and your route pops up. en route, if you decide you want to go someplace else, all you have to do is change the destination and on this aircraft, it's actually fairly simple. you can put in the new destination. it will give you a suggested

routing and then both pilots usually check it once the pilot nying says yeah, it looks good, execute, then procedurally what we do is push the button and execute and then the aircraft automatically flies to that point over those waypoints. >> so it's a relatively easy procedure for experienced, trained pilot who knows what he or she is doing up in the cockpit. jim, i want to be precise on this. you've been speaking to your law enforcement sources, national security sources from day one. they are still working under the assumption -- they have no hard evidence of a terrorist plot but they do think increasingly it was a human being that caused whatever happened as opposed it to some disastrous mechanical failure. >> that's right. they lean heavily towards it being a deliberate act. again, when you get to the next step, where is this plane today, i will say that there aren't

many sources i've talked to who find it plausible that the plane is on the ground somewhere. they tend to -- and i know that others have heard this, barbara has heard this inside the pentagon. the leading theory being that the plane more likely to be on the bottom of the ocean than having landed safely somewhere. >> you agree with that safely? >> the plane is in the water and there's no other evidence that would contradict that. >> and the fact that no debris has surfaced, nothing is floating, there's no evidence of that, what does that say to you? >> it says to me that the earliest days of the investigation and the search were wasted and that the combination of ocean currents and wind has moved it. it's going to be extraordinarily difficult right now. you will find something. >> i agree, wolf. because the conclusion comes from the reporting of the satellite data. when it comes to the technical information, if the radar is

right, if the mr satellite information is correct, it stayed in the air all of those hours and the logical flplace i disappeared would be in the ocean. >> pamela, there's about 20 or so days or left, maybe 18 or 19 left before the pinging from the black box -- here's one. it's really orange. it's not black. before those stop pinging. so these are critical moments where everyone is looking for the evidence of what happened and a lot of the evidence will be found in those flight data and voice recorders. >> it will and hopefully we will get, god willing, some new information that will help narrow that search area down because it is a needle in a haystack and although the flight off brazil was found eventually, it took years.

it's just -- god willing, we will find some details because the biggest tragedy would be -- for the world and the family would be not knowing. >> let's not forget, 239 people were aboard that airliner. guys, stand by. coming up, you heard jim sciutto report the massive search area keeps growing and growing. it's now, get this, 3 million square miles, almost as big as the continental u.s. and the latest on the search from the u.s. navy commander who is aboard the "uss blue ridge." that's coming up next. my lenses have a sunset mode. and an early morning mode. and a partly sunny mode.

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let's get back to our developing story. almost nothing is known about what happened to missing flight 370. crews are searching a massive area of the indian ocean, about 3 million square miles. cnn's brian todd is following the latest on the search. brian, what are you learning? >> the search covers a massive region. the search is complex and it's getting more so with the deployment of search teams from 26 countries. and there's one key piece of equipment on the plane sending out pings but it won't be much longer. as each day passes, the search

widens and the clock ticks. searchers may only have 19 days left to find the box with the flight data and cockpit voice recorders and the batteries might be down to 53%. >> the odds of finding out are very slim. even when you know roughly where the target is, it can be very tricky to find the ping. >> reporter: and you can't find that box until you find the plane. >> this is an enormous search area and malaysia cannot search on its own. >> reporter: 2.24 square nautical miles. an area as large as the continental united states. china and kazakhstan are taking the lead from northern thailand into central asia. australia and indonesia are taking the lead in the southern

route patrolling the indian ocean. australians are focusing their search on this area, the possible flight path they got based on the final perform pings to the satellite the u.s. navy is deploying a p-8 poe side dan and is submarine hunting plane that can cover 10,000 you miles in one nine-hour flight. if the plane is in the water, another set of challenges. search specialist mccallum says if the flight is found off the bay of bengal, searchers will have to go very deep to find it. >> it's between 4 and 7,000 meters, which is around 12 to 24, 25,000 feet.

significant depths. >> reporter: now, at that point submersibles would have to be used, either man or remotely operated ones would have to go down to take photographs. that's a man submersible. that tl is a special arm in the upper right and when we scan the video you'll see it again there, that silver arm. that is used sometimes to recover the cockpit data and voice recorders. the signal is losing battery power each day, wolf. it's crucial every day that goes by. >> it certainly is, brian. the u.s. navy is scanning the massive area. joining us on the phone is commander marks. he's aboard the "uss blue ridge." what is the latest as far as u.s. assets searching for this plane in the indian ocean are concerned? what do you have going? >> last night our p-8 pseudon

moved to perth, australia and repositioned it south to perth, australia. that will effectively double or search potential. right now we have the p-3 flying out of kuala lumpur and it will fly pretty deep into the bay of bengal. >> commander, is it one p-3 you're using and one p-8 or are there other aircraft that the u.s. is using? >> it's one of each. >> and tell us what the difference is. what can a p-3 do as opposed to the p-8? >> the p-8 is actually a brand new aircraft in the seventh fleet because of the region of the world that we are in, the region where we're rebalancing all u.s. forces here to the asia

pacific, we get the newest and the best technology first and that's what the p-8 is, the newest and best control craft technology. it flies about 20% faster so 490 knots versus 420. more importantly, they have more search time once they are there. in addition, it has advanced software, more advanced avionics and overall it's the next generation aircraft. >> excellent planes. has either one of these planes over the past few hours -- and i know you're up to speed on this -- seen anything at all that could resemble wreckage of this airliner, any clues whatsoever? >> no, they haven't. and i can relate to a story from yesterday, the crew -- they fly at about 5,000 feet or so and they had a decision to make. they were searching in the

direction of an area which was not yet covered and then over on the other side, a few miles away they saw a very faint radar return and so it was a decision point that they decided to check out what the radar return was. at that point they decreased their altitude to a 1,000 foot or so range. that way they can get a visual identification with their optical camera or people looking and then they come back up. so each flight is different and we have seen hundreds of different objects in the water, debris, trash sometimes, nothing associated with an aircraft wreckage. >> how good is the cooperation, commander, with other nations who are also involved in this search? >> it's excellent. we are tremendously glad to see australia leading the charge to

the southern route. if you know the gps one goes over north and to the land. the one from the south stretching from malaysia to australia has not been looked at that much so far. that is why we moved the p8 down here. it's been an excellent collaboration moving from the gulf of thailand where it started out with nine or ten international partners and now we're up to 25, 26, bringing in india, australia. that he is the epitome of what we do in seventh fleet, is work with all of these maritime nations. so a tremendous collaboration. >> one final question, commander. any thought of the southern fleet bringing in more aircraft, either more p3s or more p 8s? i know the united states navy has them. >> we are looking at that. you have to realize, we have continuous 24-hour operations in

support of our missions. so i'll give you an example. the p8 and p3, those really are designed when we say they are great at searching to find small objects in the water, well, really they are designed to find submarine terror scopes in the water. that's the small object that they are designed to find. so we have operations from in japan and to the north, to the east china sea to the south china sea. and so we have tragss across 124 million square miles with all of these different countries. so we are looking at that. i don't have any plans but our forces are out there all doing their mission. >> and one last question. how deep could you spot something? in other words, if this plane is at the bottom of the indian ocean, let's say 12,000 feet, would you notice that? would one of your aircraft be able to pick that up?

>> great question. the indian ocean is tremendously deep. i think the answer is not really. what we do first is search the surface of the water. if necessary, these -- the p8 and p-3 can drop sonar buoys. let's say we found the black box and thought we knew where it was, that could be used to detect that frequency and triangulate it. so we have a very slight ability to penetrate underneath the surface of the water but for the most part it's the surface and then that very initial sonar buoy later. >> commander marks, thank you. we'll check back with you tomorrow. thanks to you and to all of the women of the seventh fleet helping in this mission. >> thank you. let's bring in tom foreman. he's got a closer look at the southern arc where part of the massive search is located. what are you seeing, tom? >> let's look at the map to see

what the commander is talking about. this is where the plane seemingly vanish inned and this is where the thai officials believe it turned left and if the satellite images are correct and we follow all of these other maps here, this is where it hits the big southern achl rc that leads down to the area that the commander has says has not been searched that much. if you combine all of the search areas, it's an area as big as the continental u.s. look at this as a point of reference here. the southern search area is not that big but the areas they target are being put together not simply by instinct but by a complex mathematical formula. they put in everything, the direction, the duration, the likelihood of finding and that's how they end up with areas like this. this is one of the areas that is being searched by the

australians, about 2,000 miles off of their coast. but wolf, hour by hour, the area has to be changed because everything out here is changing. there's a whole theory of this type of searching and probability and basically what it is saying is that as each element changes, you have to rewrite the equation to decide whether or not this is the best search area or should those resources be pushed off somewhere else. but i will tell you this, you're going to be talking about 2 miles of depth compared to a 00 feet of depth back to where the plane originally disappeared and we have the currents here that have been working for days and days and days moving things around. that's why it's so complicated, wolf. but it's not by chance they end up by instinct, it's careful consideration and calculation of all of these places. it may look chaotic but it is not. >> the commander said that the

p-3 and p-8s would not be able to determine if the plane is at the bottom of the ocean, which as you mentioned is two miles deep. the flight program was reprogrammed from the cockpit. who did it? plus, the mysterious silence from passengers. why wasn't a single call made as the plane flew for hours and hours? ♪ they lived. ♪ they lived. ♪ they lived. ♪ (dad) we lived... thanks to our subaru. ♪ (announcer) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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more now on the major new developments for missing air flight 370. cnn has learned that someone inside the cockpit reprogrammed the plane's route away from the destination of beijing instead of sending it west towards the indian ocean. cnn's rene marsh has more on the mysterious revelation. what are you learning? >> that information is coming from a law enforcement official. again, that person saying that someone in the cockpit almost certainly programmed that plane to go off course and that is based on data. but what we don't know is what data they are looking at and we

don't know who may be responsible. but as one pilot tells us, it's easy to change the flight path midair if you know what you are doing in the cockpit. while people may thing pilots fly by hand, in reality, many of the turns they make are dictated by punching buttons. before takeoff, an airline dispatcher creates the flight plan. when pilots arrive at the airplane, their route is programmed and set into the flight management system. then, takeoff. in the case of flight 370, as it was following the designated flight path to beijing, cnn has learned more than 40 minutes after takeoff, the plane made an unexpected left turn that appears to have been programmed. >> you see this over here, this is my route of flight. >> captain mike weiss says altering a flight plan midair is

easy. the pilot punches it into the flight management system which operates much like a car's gps. >> if i want to change that, and it's a very typical scenario, you may have weather in your paddle, oncoming traffic in your path, i can type in another name of an airport, another waypoint that i want to go to. >> reporter: based on data, someone programmed flight 370 to go off course. it's unclear if that happened during flight or before takeoff. so if you decided while you were in the air to change your original flight path, no one on the ground would know it until you actually did it? >> that's right. once you are in the aircraft, anything is possible. >> reporter: the plane's acars which communications information about the prelane, such as engi reports and weather conditions to the ground could have revealed that someone programmed a flight switch midair.

authorities say that's not likely but in this day and age, data is being used in ways it was never envisioned. >> if that's true, whatever happened on board was deliberate but we want to drill down further, if that data can tell us when the change was programmed, that would be very significant. if it was reprogrammed long before the turn, that suggests there may not have been an emergency and it was premeditated. however, if it was programmed right at the time, that would mean that an intruder was in the cockpit. >> i want to dig a little deeper. joining us now, hans weber joining us from san diego. also, law enforcement analyst tom fuentes and peter goelz. hans, let me show you and we'll show our viewers, this is not a 777 but it's similar. you push a few buttons here and

then you change the flight deck. when you hear these reports that someone in the cockpit changed the flight path for whatever reason, what goes through your mind? what was your thought when you heard that? >> well, i expected that. >> tell us why. >> because if -- there's an echo. because -- and so i'm a -- there was an echo. because the fact that the airplane changed its flight path indicates that somebody reprogrammed the flight management system. that's how it is done. that's the standard. there's very little hand flying anymore. shortly after takeoff you have the flight -- it takes over until shortly before landing which is, by the way, a challenge because pilots don't get to practice their piloting skills that much anymore. but it takes a huge burden off the pilot to not have to hand fly the airplane. >> if you were leading this investigation, peter, and you

have led other investigations, you heard this latest report, someone inside the cockpit for whatever reason, it was clear sailing 40 minutes into the flight or whatever happened, instead of going to beijing they make a left turn out towards the indian ocean, what does that lead you? >> right back to the flight crew. you've got to be digging into their background, into every communication they've made in the last few months, into their financial situations, into their personal situations, into their political ideologies. you've got to be able to eliminate them before you move on. >> you think they are doing a good job, tom? because you have been involved in these kinds of international investigations, if you will, when you were at the fbi. are they doing that? >> the problem is that even doing that you could come up negative because you could have a situation where you can't read the mind of either or both pilots to know what they may have been thinking or what they may have been planning if they didn't tell anybody else about it or show outward signs of

abnormalities. so that's a problem where you just always don't know what someone is thinking until they do it. >> guys, stand by. we're going to continue our analysis. take a quick break. up next, hundreds of passengers possibly with just as many cell phones. so why wasn't anyone able to make a call as the plane flew on for hours? plus, a closer look at what one of the pilots says is the most logical explanation, an electrical fire. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need.

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we'll get back to the mystery of flight 370 in just a moment but we're also monitoring the biggest crisis with russia since the breakup of the union in 1971. vladimir putin has announced that its country is taking control over the crimeaen ple peninsula. let's go to jim acosta. he's following the story. jim, what happens now? >> reporter: wolf, white house officials and administration officials say more penalties are on their way as aides to the president say he's tough enough to take on vladimir putin. in a scene that is straight out of the cold war, russia's parliament gave vladimir putin a standing ovation as he ignores warnings from the u.s. and annexed crimea. >> in our hearts, crimea will

always remain a part of russia. >> reporter: putin's capture the crimean peninsula and to reassure nato allies in poland where he insists that russia will pay for what he called a land grab. >> they will, in fact, see additional sanctions by the united states and the eu. >> reporter: the crisis in ukraine edged closer to conflict after one ukrainian soldier was killed amid reports russian forces stormed a base in crimea. in response, armed forces authorized its troops to use weapons in self-defense. diplomatic tensions were also building. russian's foreign minister told secretary of state john kerry there will be consequences to u.s. sanctions. kerry questioned putin's motives. >> that doesn't legitimatize just taking what you want

because you want it or because you're angry about the end of the cold war or the end of the soviet union or whatever it is. >> reporter: but the president's critics claim he showed weakness. mitt romney accused the president of, quote, failure when action was possible and needed. >> most of what we here called for, we are doing. >> now, president obama did talk about the crisis in ukraine with angela merkel earlier today and called for a gathering of the g-7 leaders at the hague next week. that's a clear signal to russia that not only might the russians lose a possibility of hosting a g-8 summit in sochi, they may not be able to attend altogether. >> jim acosta, thank you. when we come back, missing flight 370. there were hundreds of passengers and just as many cell

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it's another mystery surrounding malaysian airlines flight 37 with possibly hundreds of cell phones on the plane, why wasn't there a single call from anyone as the plane flew on for hours before it vanished. suzanne malveaux is working this part of the

story for us. what you finding out? >> we've been discussings this all week, woshding in the age of sophisticated social media, why we haven't gotten any evidence of those on board at the team of distress reaching out. we know if a cell phone keeps ring, int doesn't mean that the person on the other end is alive. what if it's possible that anybody on the flight tried to contact their loved ones or ask for help. on september 11th, hijackers commandeered four planes, passengers and flight attendants on board started making call. >> our purser is stabbed. nobody knows who stabbed who. >> using cell phones and air phones, those on board reached out to loved one, sought help and ultimately warned others of the impending attacks.

but for the malaysian flight 370, silence, no phone calls, no texts, no tweets. one netheory that the cell phon didn't work was of the all the tuesday. >> $35,000 feet is much too high. >> you're not going to get any consumer grade technology to be able to talk to the ground from that kind of height. >> your cruising altitude, 25,000 feet, would it be poe possible to receive a signal? >> very rare. >> there was some point that the plane had been flying over malaysia and there were a couple of cities, major cities and towns and villages. is it possible that those signals could have gotten to a cell phone pow center. >> again if people were awake trying to use their phone it is possible. however it's possible that they weren't able to officially communicate pipt's not just sending the radio waves. we have to be in touch long

enough to have a little conversation. >> those on board the 9/11 flights were able to have conversations because the planes were flying in low areas. but ex-perts say most of those calls were not made from cell phones but airline phones which use radio or satellite technology. a technology that has been fazed out because of its high cost. the phones on this plan may have been -- the more like lie scenario is that no one called when the plane reversed coarse. >> the lights would have been dim. there would have been little or no cabin service. it was almost an hour into the flight. it was a tranquil night. nobody would have noticed anything. it would have been business as

usual. >> there's another theory that aviation analysts are looking into and whether or not the cabin was depressurized either by the pilot or someone who may have wanted to sabotage the flight at 30,000 feet. passengers would have passed out within second or if they had their oxygen masks they would have had 15 minutes. our mark weis, i talked to him. he doesn't put a lot of weight behind that snare you but there are others saying they're not ruling out anything. >> a fascinating report. a quick thought why no one made any cell phone contact after that plane was simply flying and flying? >> i think so zan had it right, it was too high, traveling too fast. there were no towers. they're not designed to do it. just ahead, an experienced pilot says he thinksen an electrical fire forced the plane to change course. and the families of passengers are desperate for

information. they're now taking their frustration out on malaysian official pps we're going live to kuala lumpur for the latest. our "the situation room" special report continues after this.

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happening now, plenty of new developments in the mystery of flight 370, including a surprise from thailand's military. their radar spotted something that may have been the plane flying the wrong way. we'll take you inside a cockpit similar later to show you how the pilots could have reprogrammed their computer to change course. plus a possible explanation that involves equipment malfunction and smoke instead of foul play. we'll take a closer look at why pilots say it makes a lot of sense. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room."

been a day of surprising revelations and the biggest surprise adds weight to thert r thertheo thertheory, someone intentionally turned the plane off of the course. it was the signal -- if this was the signal from the missing jet, it's dramatic proof the plane turned left heading back across the peninsula and west toward the indian ocean. also a law enforcement official tells cnn the westward turn almost certainly, in quotes, with almost certainly was programmed into the plane's on. board computer by someone in the cockpit. another important development, the search of both pilot's e-mail and computer so far has turned up nothing suspicious, they korgd to u.s. officials who have been briefed by the malaysians. our correspondents and analysts

are working their sources to bring you the latest. our in-depth look starts this hour with jim skchu to. >> they're not officially suspects in the investigation but they've come under suspicion. someone a pilot orco pilot's knowledge hads to make the decision to make the turn. but now police have examined their e-mails, their homes and computers and crucially that flight similar later that the captain of this flight had in his home, he had no contact there, no evidence on that flight similar later that he had practiced this path in advance of taking this flight. so what exxon rating evidence from that search. the other information we got today is the radar data from thailand. we had known to this point that

malaysian radar had picked up a signal of this plane along the path. now you have thailand which has its own radar. it dips down into the space where the plane travel. it corroborates the idea that the plane carried along this path out into the indiian ocean. the trouble is when you get out here, this is a very large search area. we've shown the map, the size, really more than the size of the continental united states. it makes for a real challenge going forward. >> stand by, jim, because we're getting more breaking news. the u.s. is encouraging malaysia to become more transparent in what he knows. let's go to barbara. >> reporter: wolf, chuck hagel has had a direct conversation with the malaysian defense minister who also service as the transportation minister.

the two men i was told had a friendly conversation. but hagel also taking the opportunity to make the point to the malaysians about transparency. two officials confirm the conversation details to me saying that hagel took the opportunity to say to the malaysians, goods idea to be transparent, tell the world what you know when you know it. of course the malaysian government coming under a lot of scrutiny especially in the early days after that for perhaps not being very forth coming about what they knew. we'll see if that gets bet near the coming days, wolf. >> i spoke with the spokesman for the u.s. knave in the pacific, he said to me the u.s. was doubling its capacity in the search right now. explain what that means. >> reporter: well what he's talking about is the navy has had a p 3 and p 8. these are long-range maritime surveillance aircraft.

they can fly very long distance ps. but they're moving them down south into the southern indian ocean. they will move around as needs dictate when they get cloous clues about where debris fields may be. these air cat can respond much more rapidly and cover larger areas than ships can. if they find a debris field, they have to move in a ship very quickly to go look at it. but these aircraft can range for hundreds of miles. keep in mind, wolf, this southern indian ocean you to only look at the map to see the vast size. the indian ocean operation now being run by australia and the malaysia, a 25 nation coalition, wolf. it's the equivalent of a mayor military operation. >> it certainly is. thank you. even though u.s. officials say it's likely flight 370 crash into the indian ocean, there's still a nagging fear that

somehow terrorists could have seized the jet for other purposes. while those theories seem farfetched, israelis always a tar roar target and they're taking no chances right now. let's go to our senior correspondent from jerusalem. nick robertson, what are you learning? >> reporter: a as we know israel for many years has been a global leader in aviation security. but the measures they're taking now they're taking extra steps to go further to try to identify aircraft before they get close are than they used to israel's territory. >> 2083. >> in israel's aif gags security center, staff are on heightened alert. >> thank you very much for the call, sir.

>> from pilot's calls to airport security, multiple information. in this room israel's security hangs on minute by minute, second by second decisions about approaching aircraft. in here the possibility of a rogue passenger jet is a permanent threat. this man said their system would have alerted a problem has flight 370 been near their air space. >> once it would have been identified, security incident would be announced and start to be managed. >> reporter: managed by alerting the airline aenl air defense forces and formed by the data already scoured by the data matrix at the center's core. since flight mh 370 disappeared, checks here have become more rigorous as they see a new

threat emerging, the air crew. >> maybe we -- the last wing of trust was broken. >> reporter: just four weeks ago an ethiopian copilot hijacked the jet he was flying seeking asylum in switzerland. three months before that, a pilot hijacked a flight he was flying age intentionally crashed the plane killing all people on board. a disturbing trend that can't be ignored. >> it's not necessarily always traditional terrorist background. but many different additional motives. >> reporter: so before we even know all of the full facts about what happened to mh 370, it appears that the security around the way that we're flying, even though we don't see it, is being changed because there's a whole new realm of threat that's being

per cede out there. >> i know you've been working on a related story as well. certainly what the israelis are up to is always important. i take it that one theory about how the plane may have been hijacked by terrorists has been ruled out. what can you tell us about this? >> reporter: it goes back to a british al-qaeda member. richard read, the shoe bomber who tried to blow up an airline between paris and miami back in december of 2001. now this man has given evidence against the son-in-law of bin laden. this is information that he agreed to give the authorities several years ago but it's just becoming public. and what is central to part of his evidence is he said when he

was in an al-qaeda camp in afghanistan in 2001 he met 0 are was aware of a number of malaysians planning an attack on an aircraft. he said one of them was a pilot and they had given the leader of the group a shoe bomb so that they could potentially blow the door open to the cabin of the aircraft. because that information is being made public in the court right now in new york, some people are perceiving this as new. what we've learned in u.s. investigators is that they've been arare of this for a long time, they were aware of the plot back in 2001, that the malaysian authorities have acted against some of the people in that plot, that some of them have, arrested even. and what we've also learned is the man who was believed to be the pilot was far from depleting his pilot training. so the thought that these malaysians named in that evidence in a court in new york last week by this british al-qaeda member, the thought

they could be involved in some action on mh 370, that, wolf, is a nonstarter. >> it's still intriguing that malaysians have been linked to a hijacking plot years ago. nick robertson doing excellent reporting for us from jerusalem. joining us our national security analyst, peter bergen, "the new york times" correspondent, michael schmitt has been reporting on this and jim sciotto is still with us. they're tightening up their security out of precaution. why isn't the united states doing that in. >> what do we have legitimately on the facts. we have three facts. the jet was missing, three sources, thailand, malaysia and the at light identified the plane.

the facts can't be vetted. we're chasing one rumor after another. we're chasing things -- i'm sure there's good sources going on here but i feel like we're way off the reservation on some of these things. i think in effect we have ruled out nothing. the pilots seem clean from the flight's data similar later. we don't have much on that. could it have been mechanical? absolutely. the key question is did the good night signal from the copilot proceed or follow the turn, if it followed that turn, then we have something nefarious. >> let me ask michael schmitt. do you have the answer to that question? >> just to your point about the terrorism. the fbi sources i've spoken to said if it was terrorism, it's a knew par ra tiadigmparadigm.

there was no chatter coming up. there's been no talk about it. so if this is terrorism it's new and very different. could that be the case? yeah, of course. but to your point there's nothing there to back it up. >> you did some excellent reporting on the reprogramming of the flight course, if you will. when was that -- do you know when that was reprogrammed. >> shortly before they lost contact with the ground. >> what does that mean in terms of this investigation? >> what it does mean is that whoever programmed that had to have known how to operate inside a cockpit like that. that skrould, the pilot, that could have been someone else on there. but what it doesn't tell sus that it was taken manually by someone who grabbed control of it and took it in a different direction. so whoever did this, had to have some knowledge of what they're doing. >> and this is a similar to the programmer. you just push seven or eight

buttons and instead of going to beijing, you can make a left turn and head out west to the indian ocean. >> you don't a need to use that. you can simply change the heading. it's on auto pilot. it's not a manual control of an aircraft. you can change the heading to make the turn. >> miking, how do people know it was preprogrammed inside the cockpit? >> i don't know how they know inside the cockpit. what happened is this was sending information down to the ground where it was taken through the acar system. and that's where the information -- >> they got that from the acar system that was still functioning. you know, this terrorism notion, peter you've studied this a good deal, an article in the "the new york times" today, on these transponders how easy it is to just flip a switch, you turn off the transponder and then there's no communication with ground

control in u you will. the issue today he writes is exactly as it was own 9/11. pilots like their location to be known for ground assistance. only a hijacker at the controls of an aircraft would want the transponder silent. do you agree with that assessment? >> it seems perfectly reasonable. and i think the terrorism kind of debate moved forward a little bit not only with what jim was mentioning about finding nothing derogatory on the computers of the pilot and copilot, also the chinese saying they looked at every passenger and none of them were associated with terrorism. >> two thirds of the passengers were from china. >> and people that could profit the idea of chinese separatist. i think the chinese said -- by the way, they're pretty rigorous on this issue. if they felt there was an iota of a possibilities, they would -- >> that doesn't rule out that

for whatever other reason, beyond political terrorism, if you will, someone in that cockpit decided to try to bring that plane down. >> that's possible. they say exactly the same thing they've said to you, which is none of the normal signs they look for were chatter, running it by databases, none of these things claims of responsibilities have come up. they've investigated a lot of terror attacks before and are used to that. on china, they have a massive and police state. they follow their people very well. i imagine they're very good at doing background checks. if they've done their background checks and have not found -- china is amped up about the athreat right now. they're going to be on it when it comes to that. now, in terms of someone deliberately taking the plane, that opens other possibilities and you have precedents.

and i will say, just as a final point, intel analysts have not given up the possibility of terror but they haven't found a sign of it yet. >> richard quest is watching what's going on. you reader barbara star, richard, say that defense secretary chuck hagel spoke with his counter part in malaysia today and urging greater transparency on the part of malaysian authorities. what do you make of that in. >> they obviously are really feeling they're not getting something that they want. transparen transparency, wolf, is at various levels. it can be public transparency, are they giving enough information to the public so that the public has confidence in that which is being done. or it can be transparency of the intelligence level of transparency of the investigative level. we know there are rumors that american investigators do not feel they've been given the necessary -- for instance, reports that the similar later,

they weren't given original similar later material from the pilot's own similar later. they were given an assessment of it. we know from the radar track -- now i think it's a knnew ons approach that they're saying we are giving information that any other nation would give. we're not withholding. i think what the defense secretary is doing is very gently, very different to the chinese who are basically hitting them over the head with a stick. but the u.s. is basically saying very gently, it's time to be more coop ty and sean to be more cooperative. >> you've been involved in these investigations in your government service. it's one thing to get a report from malaysian authorities on what they've concluded. it's another thing to let u.s. and interinternational experts take a look at the simulators,

take a look at the hard drives of the computers, take a look at the audio tapes, take a look at the video tapes, and presumably that would be very useful. but based on what we're hearing, they're not doing that. they're giving an assessment based on their conclusions. >> every crash has a unique dna. look at twa 800. everybody thought it was a bomb. a fuel tank had never exploded before from an internal source. it turned out it was the fuel quantity indicator system. so you need to caution that everything we mains on the table. we have not ruled out any kind of mechanical failure or anything. it's baffling. >> and you're reporting for the "the new york times," are you getting a sense from your sources that they're making progress or they're almost back to square one? >> i think they're making so

progress with the malaysians. i think on saturday when they made the statements they did, the u.s. saw that as a first step toward being as tans parent as possible. and i also think they're making some progress in convincing them to let them in. the fbi especially has a great ability with forensic computers to dig in and to find things like that. and i don't think -- i wouldn't be very surprised if we saw the u.s. eventually getting their hands on it. it may take a few days. the malaysians may not say it publicly. but i would be surprised if they're going to keep the fbi on the sidelines. >> as far as you know have they let the fbi, other u.s. authorities inspect the similar later that was in the home of the pilot? >> to my knowledge, that hasn't happened. the fbi agents are listening to what is going on and maybe providing a little feedback or whatever. they have no investigative role. >> richard quest, a lot of us would like to see some of the

closed-sur cute video camera images that they have at the airport there, the flight taking off, how long was it on the runway, how long did it take for the plane the take off, did it have the regular amount of full? did it have extra fuel? those kind of questions, i.d. would be great to see those kinds of information. >> they're sharing it in a fashion. for example, on the fuel point, the ceo of malaysian airline confirmed there was no extra fuel put on board. this is an investigation both potentially criminal and cert n certainly aeronaught kl. once these investigations are underway, you are very restricted if you're a credited party, if you're part of the agreement. you're almost -- the only people who can release information basically are the malaysians.

now they are the duty to keep the investigation sterile up to a point. arguably they're getting the balance wrong but it's easy for us to second-guess them when we don't have the job of doing the investigation. >> we got to leave it right there. we're going to continue the investigation. thaix very much. still ahead, standing, shouting we demanding answers after 12 days of conflicting stories. the mood is turning ugly amongst some of the passengers' families. we're looking at a theory that doesn't involve terrorism. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, like me,

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to our north american viewer, "cross fire" won't be seen tonight. u.s. officials say the malaysian government has found no suspicious content in the pilot's computer or e-mail, nothing to indicate that the route changes were planned ahead of time. the news comes after talk between the detense secretaries with chuck hagel telling the malaysian defense secretary tore more transparent. andrew is joining us with more of what is going on. andrew, what else are you learning? >> reporter: wolf, the malaysians are asking chuck hagel to get access to more at light surveillance information as well. but it's interesting, very much the focus this morning, we're

still in the predawn hours this morning, on the pilot and the information that we're getting. that the pilots effectively cleared their communications equipment and that similar later you were talking about has turned up nothing to suggest that some suspicious activities may have been taking place. and it does tie in to be honest with what we have been hearing about the pilot and what we have been hearing about the copilot. the pilot is an aviation geek. he has a similar later in his home. his friends continue to defend him saying he is the guy you want in the cockpit if something does happen. they're also hearing that the chinese has cleared their passengers from the plots. the chinese telling the malaysians here yesterday that that was the case. so still moving along, as far as the transparency goes, that's a key issue here because obviously there's an enormous amount of frustration about the level of information that's b